Thread: Best open source tool for database design / ERDs?
What open source tool do people here like for creating ER diagrams?
I use the azzuri eclipse plugin. It's rudimentary, but get's the job done for smaller (a couple of dozens of tables) models. It has a commercial version which might be even better. t.n.a. On 28 May 2006 05:19:04 -0700, dananrg@yahoo.com <dananrg@yahoo.com> wrote: > What open source tool do people here like for creating ER diagrams? > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq >
Druid works ok.... http://druid.sourceforge.net/index.html BTJ On 28 May 2006 05:19:04 -0700 dananrg@yahoo.com wrote: > What open source tool do people here like for creating ER diagrams? > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
On 5/29/06, Bjørn T Johansen <btj@havleik.no> wrote: > Druid works ok.... > > http://druid.sourceforge.net/index.html Are there a couple of screenshots available on the net, a flash demo perhaps? t.n.a.
On Mon, 29 May 2006 14:43:19 +0200 "Tomi NA" <hefest@gmail.com> wrote: > On 5/29/06, Bjørn T Johansen <btj@havleik.no> wrote: > > Druid works ok.... > > > > http://druid.sourceforge.net/index.html > > Are there a couple of screenshots available on the net, a flash demo perhaps? > > t.n.a. Don't know... BTJ
Thanks. What about DIA - http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ ...or DB Designer - http://fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/ (this one claims to be feature-equivalent, or in the sphere of, products like Oracle's Designer, ERWin, and Rational Rose.
postgresql_autodoc and dia. On 28 May 2006 05:19:04 -0700, dananrg@yahoo.com <dananrg@yahoo.com> wrote: > What open source tool do people here like for creating ER diagrams? > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq >
dananrg@yahoo.com wrote on 29.05.2006 13:06: > Thanks. What about DIA - http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ > > ...or DB Designer - http://fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/ (this one claims > to be feature-equivalent, or in the sphere of, products like Oracle's > Designer, ERWin, and Rational Rose. > This is not maintained any longer (unfortunately because I really like it). And the support for non-MySQL databases is nearly non-existing. As the actual model is saved in XML I wrote an XSLT task to convert the DbDesigner to an Oracle SQL script (CREATE TABLE....). It shouldn't be that hard to adjust it for Postgres. If anyone is interested I can post it (the Oracle version) here. Regards Thomas
Thanks Thomas. That's too bad about DB Designer. I didn't realize it had been abandoned. What do y'all think of DIA?
Anyone know if DIA will generate CREATE TABLE statements from an ER diagram? I'd like to have a program where I can create my db design, then be able to instantiate the design in PostgreSQL as well as MySQL. I'll pay for a good commercial tool if it costs less than USD $100. Thanks.
You might look into Eclipse (the java-based IDE). It has at least one ERD design plugin that allows graphical layout, editing of schema, and generation of DDL directly from the schema. It works with many DB platforms and is FREE!!! Sean On 6/1/06 5:44 AM, "dananrg@yahoo.com" <dananrg@yahoo.com> wrote: > Anyone know if DIA will generate CREATE TABLE statements from an ER > diagram? > > I'd like to have a program where I can create my db design, then be > able to instantiate the design in PostgreSQL as well as MySQL. > > I'll pay for a good commercial tool if it costs less than USD $100. > > Thanks. >
On Thu, 1 Jun 2006, Sean Davis wrote: > You might look into Eclipse (the java-based IDE). It has at least one ERD > design plugin that allows graphical layout, editing of schema, and > generation of DDL directly from the schema. It works with many DB platforms > and is FREE!!! Allow me to second that suggestion. I used one (whose name I don't recall) from Azzurri in Japan. It was an easy installation into eclipse, allowed me to design the schema and relations, then generated the postgres statements. I used it on one project; haven't had the need since then (and that was 2.5 years ago). Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM) | Accelerator <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
Hi,
tedia2sql will do the job: http://tedia2sql.tigris.org
Greetings,
Leif
On Thu, 1 Jun 2006 dananrg@yahoo.com wrote:
> Anyone know if DIA will generate CREATE TABLE statements from an ER
> diagram?
>
> I'd like to have a program where I can create my db design, then be
> able to instantiate the design in PostgreSQL as well as MySQL.
>
> I'll pay for a good commercial tool if it costs less than USD $100.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>
Dia itself is just a diagramming tool. However, there are a number of apps at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/links.html that will take Dia diagram files and generate db schemas for you... dananrg@yahoo.com wrote: > Anyone know if DIA will generate CREATE TABLE statements from an ER > diagram? > > I'd like to have a program where I can create my db design, then be > able to instantiate the design in PostgreSQL as well as MySQL. > > I'll pay for a good commercial tool if it costs less than USD $100. > > Thanks. > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend >
On 6/1/06 12:29 PM, "Tomi NA" <hefest@gmail.com> wrote: > On 6/1/06, Sean Davis <sdavis2@mail.nih.gov> wrote: >> You might look into Eclipse (the java-based IDE). It has at least one ERD >> design plugin that allows graphical layout, editing of schema, and >> generation of DDL directly from the schema. It works with many DB platforms >> and is FREE!!! > > What's it called? http://www.azzurri.jp/en/software/clay/
Thanks for all the great suggestions. Dana
Anyone here used both DIA and schema export extensions for it as well as the Eclipse ERD plug-in for creating and exporting schemas - I mean outputting DDL statements in PostgreSQL? Or Druid? Which do you like best and why? Thanks.
On Thursday 01 June 2006 15:39, Sean Davis wrote: > You might look into Eclipse (the java-based IDE). It has at least one ERD > design plugin that allows graphical layout, editing of schema, and > generation of DDL directly from the schema. It works with many DB > platforms and is FREE!!! Would you mind give me the plugin name (or url) ? TIA, D.
On Fri, 2 Jun 2006, Dany De Bontridder wrote: > On Thursday 01 June 2006 15:39, Sean Davis wrote: > Would you mind give me the plugin name (or url) ? Dany, It was mentioned yesterday; the name is 'clay' and if you aim your browser at <http://www.azzurri.jp/en/software/clay/> you can read all about it. I found it easy to learn and use and quite effective. Of course, since then I've stopped using eclipse. I'm back to emacs. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM) | Accelerator <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
Rich Shepard wrote: > On Fri, 2 Jun 2006, Dany De Bontridder wrote: > >> On Thursday 01 June 2006 15:39, Sean Davis wrote: > > >> Would you mind give me the plugin name (or url) ? > > > Dany, > > It was mentioned yesterday; the name is 'clay' and if you aim your > browser > at <http://www.azzurri.jp/en/software/clay/> you can read all about it. > > I found it easy to learn and use and quite effective. Of course, > since then > I've stopped using eclipse. I'm back to emacs. > > Rich > a caveat: I don't believe, from my reading of the license, that this is an open source software product.
On Fri, 2 Jun 2006, Michael Dean wrote: > a caveat: I don't believe, from my reading of the license, that this is an > open source software product. May not be. I don't recall. Neither is Java. But, if you're using it for your own purposes, what's the issue? Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM) | Accelerator <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
On 6/2/06, Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> wrote: > On Fri, 2 Jun 2006, Michael Dean wrote: > > > a caveat: I don't believe, from my reading of the license, that this is an > > open source software product. > > May not be. I don't recall. Neither is Java. But, if you're using it for > your own purposes, what's the issue? There are so many, so profound and - for the biggest part - not at all well understood issues about using open source software vs. the alternative that it's very hard to reply to your question with a straight face. t.n.a.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 dananrg@yahoo.com wrote: > Anyone know if DIA will generate CREATE TABLE statements from an ER > diagram? > > I'd like to have a program where I can create my db design, then be > able to instantiate the design in PostgreSQL as well as MySQL. > > I'll pay for a good commercial tool if it costs less than USD $100. > > Thanks. > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend > You can try Gaudí (http://www.memoriapersistente.pt/en/opensource/gaudi/index.html). The version that is on the net is a bit outdated but fully funcional. It does generate SQL files with the proper statements for creating the tables. Plus: it also creates the tables as well as foreign keys and generates Java classes for database binding. Soon (in a couple of days) we'll publish a new release ;-) Regards, Carlos Correia - -- MEMÓRIA PERSISTENTE, Lda. Tel.: 219 291 591 - GSM: 967 511 762 e-mail: geral@m16e.com - URL: http://www.m16e.com Jabber: m16e@amessage.de - MSN: m16e@hotmail.com - ICQ: 257488263 GnuPG: wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEgWyh90uzwjA1SJURAlZtAJ4yrqoJEw7lJgJXf7mayGxxvRLvKACfVKFg vKE+Cb+2+IMwCe2/uO+aMq0= =3DcI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
tedia2sql for DIA seems pretty strange, in that it seems to require you to use UML diagrams, rather than ER Diagrams, to forward engineer a database - e.g. output DDL statements. Am I misreading what tedia2sql does, or is does one have to use repurpose UML diagrams to get DDL statements created? I was a little disappointed with the ER Diagram functions of DIA. Looks like you can only add a few properties at most given the way it is structured - having circles radiating out from the Entity. There's only so much screen space... then there's no way to specify a SQL ANSI data type from what I recall. Is there a commercial tool that's less than $200 which kicks the *ss of any of these open source solutions? I'd rather use something free, but not if it doesn't do what I want it to do easily. I like the Open Office apps like Writer and Calc. Calc in particular does everything Excel does - at least everything I've ever used Excel for. Seems like the open source data modeling tools aren't feature-rich quite yet. Dana
dananrg@yahoo.com wrote:
>Seems like the open source data modeling tools aren't feature-rich
>quite yet.
>
>
Disclaimer: this is probably *not* what you want, but I will throw it
out for completeness.
We have a non-graphical tool that builds databases out of text files
that resemble CSS, such as:
table customers {
column customer { primary_key: Y; }
...
}
Very likely we share the same purpose as you do, to capture data
structure outside of DDL. But going further, we designed with nothing
less in mind than to capture the entire system requirements in the
database spec, including derived columns and other automations, and
including security as well. A generator builds the DDL.
Going one better, the generator also works as a diff engine, so when you
make changes it generates the DDL to change the structure and also the
trigger code to enforce the rules.
The twist is that we found when the file format was complete and the
features were in we really didn't need the GUI. We may put one in
someday, but jedit is our GUI now :)
So if you are at all willing to consider non-GUI tools that aim for the
same purpose, you may wish to check it out:
http://docs.secdat.com
Attachment
Have you tried Druid (http://druid.sourceforge.net/index.html) ? It does anything a good ERD designer do and it's free... BTJ On 5 Jun 2006 16:54:56 -0700 dananrg@yahoo.com wrote: > tedia2sql for DIA seems pretty strange, in that it seems to require you > to use UML diagrams, rather than ER Diagrams, to forward engineer a > database - e.g. output DDL statements. > > Am I misreading what tedia2sql does, or is does one have to use > repurpose UML diagrams to get DDL statements created? > > I was a little disappointed with the ER Diagram functions of DIA. Looks > like you can only add a few properties at most given the way it is > structured - having circles radiating out from the Entity. There's only > so much screen space... then there's no way to specify a SQL ANSI data > type from what I recall. > > Is there a commercial tool that's less than $200 which kicks the *ss of > any of these open source solutions? I'd rather use something free, but > not if it doesn't do what I want it to do easily. > > I like the Open Office apps like Writer and Calc. Calc in particular > does everything Excel does - at least everything I've ever used Excel > for. > > Seems like the open source data modeling tools aren't feature-rich > quite yet. > > Dana > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
What about OpenOffice Draw 2.0? Can this do ER / UML diagrams that one can then use to forward engineer DDL statements? How does DIA compare to Draw, and wouldn't it be better to roll DIA into OpenOffice? I love OpenOffice and use it as an MS Word / MS Excel replacement. Works great, since it can read/write MS formats.
Bjørn T Johansen wrote: > Have you tried Druid (http://druid.sourceforge.net/index.html) ? > It does anything a good ERD designer do and it's free... Thanks Bjorn. I have downloaded it but not tested it yet. I will test it in the next few days. DIA doesn't seem like a good choice. Did somebody say Druid can do forward engineering for PostgreSQL? I'm a little concerned about stepping over dollars to pick-up pennies so to speak. If Druid does about as much as the commercial diagramming products do, then I will use it. However, if there is a non-open source diagrammer that is USD $200 or less that does a lot more, or does what it does a lot better - e.g. it makes me a lot more efficient, then I would rather pay for the commercial tool. What inexpensive (~USD $200 or less) ERD tools are out there, and are they a lot more feature-rich than Druid? Thanks. Dana
Take a look at http://www.databaseanswers.com/modelling_tools.htm I have used Case Studio 2 (fine, weak on documentation generation), and PowerDesigner by Sybase (truly excellent! but $$$) John dananrg@yahoo.com wrote: > Bjørn T Johansen wrote: > >>Have you tried Druid (http://druid.sourceforge.net/index.html) ? >>It does anything a good ERD designer do and it's free... > > > Thanks Bjorn. I have downloaded it but not tested it yet. I will test > it in the next few days. DIA doesn't seem like a good choice. > > Did somebody say Druid can do forward engineering for PostgreSQL? > > I'm a little concerned about stepping over dollars to pick-up pennies > so to speak. If Druid does about as much as the commercial diagramming > products do, then I will use it. However, if there is a non-open source > diagrammer that is USD $200 or less that does a lot more, or does what > it does a lot better - e.g. it makes me a lot more efficient, then I > would rather pay for the commercial tool. > > What inexpensive (~USD $200 or less) ERD tools are out there, and are > they a lot more feature-rich than Druid? > > Thanks. > > Dana > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
> I have used Case Studio 2 (fine, weak on documentation generation), and > PowerDesigner by Sybase (truly excellent! but $$$) > John Thanks John. I've been playing with Druid and it seems to be able to do what I need it to do. It wasn't immediately intuitive to use, but the functionality is there. To Druid users, or those who've tried and rejected Druid, what feature deficiencies do you see Druid as having? So long as Druid continues to be developed, I think I'll stick with it. Here's one Druid "annoyance" One real pain with the ER Diagram is that it seems to insist on including, and often inconveniently repositioning, a little non-entity yellow box that says Unamed. I think it's a color legend. Anyone know how I can get rid of it? Other than that, I'm delighted with it so far. The auto-DML creation for whichever database I choose is very cool. Dana
On 8 Jun 2006 04:30:38 -0700 dananrg@yahoo.com wrote: > Here's one Druid "annoyance" > > One real pain with the ER Diagram is that it seems to insist on > including, and often inconveniently repositioning, a little non-entity > yellow box that says Unamed. I think it's a color legend. Anyone know > how I can get rid of it? > Yes, that is annoying.... But you can remove the legend by right clicking on the name of the ER and choosing Properties.. Under Legend, you can change Location to None; that will remove it... BTJ
Bjørn T Johansen wrote: > Yes, that is annoying.... But you can remove the legend by right clicking on the name of > the ER and choosing Properties.. Under Legend, you can change Location to None; > that will remove it... Thanks Bjorn. I'll give that a try. Hopefully that will be turned off by default in the next release. It's a nice program. Using DIA + add-ons to do the same thing seemed inelegant. Although I hope the DIA project continues. Needs to be added to Open Office. Dana
Can Druid reverse engineer an Access 97 MDB file, say, through an OBDC connection? I would like to replicate the schema from an Access 97 database, then be able to forward engineer to PostgreSQL and other databases. If Druid can't reverse engineer, can another open source tool do the job? Thanks very much.